THE TEMPERATE HOUSE 
i53 
of the building. The most important development in modern green- 
house construction is the recognition of the necessity of light and 
fresh air. The disregard of these essential matters is almost entirely 
responsible for the uninteresting character of the vegetation in most 
public plant-houses of large size. The plants are usually dull and 
flowerless, because scarcity or profusion of blossom is almost wholly 
a question of light. 
By far the most important of the three divisions is the great cen- 
tral one called the Winter Garden. No house of plants in Kew is, 
. on the whole, so charming and uniformly agreeable as 
Garden* 0 ^ ^ s ‘ co ^> wintry weather the thermometer is 
often but little over 40° Fahr. in this house ; but the 
change from the bleak outside, with its leafless trees and perhaps 
biting wind, to the soft, still air and richly luxuriant vegetation of 
the Winter Garden is always delightful. In the torrid heat of July 
and August, on the other hand, when one is apt to look askance at 
any glass-house, it is frequently cooler here than out-of-doors. It 
is a type of greenhouse which probably gives greater pleasure with 
less cost than any other. No fire-heat is needed for about half the 
year, and but little during the remainder, and as all the plants may 
be grown in beds, the work of watering and otherwise tending them 
is reduced to a minimum. In this house great numbers of plants 
are grown on the side shelves in pots, but this is simply due to the 
necessity of maintaining a collection of numerous species. In a 
private garden, or in one where botanical aspects have not to be 
considered, benches for pot plants may be dispensed with, and the 
whole house utilised for plants grown in plots of earth. This is, 
in fact, done in the two wings of this house. 
In the Winter Garden the Australasian flora predominates. Nearly 
all the finest trees in it are natives of Australia itself, but some 
others come from New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and 
Australasian Tasmania. The flora of Australasia, like its fauna, is 
P lsrits 
one of the most interesting on the globe, because it 
includes so many distinct races which do not exist elsewhere. In 
this house the trees that will strike the visitor most are two speci- 
mens of the bunya-bunya pine ( Araucaria Bidwillii ). They long ago 
reached the top of the house, and several times have had to be re- 
duced in height. The branches are loaded with dense, heavy masses 
of spiny foliage, and the trunks are formidably armed. The fruits or 
